A judge from New Zealand said Thursday that one in 20 children in England and Wales may have been sexually abused as she opened a huge inquiry into accusations of institutional paedophilia during the 1980s.

Religion-based societal violence in India was the "most significant" human rights problem in the country in 2014, besides "widespread corruption" and abuses by police and security force, according to a US State Department report.

Pope Francis approved on Wednesday an unprecedented Vatican department to judge bishops accused of covering up or not preventing sexual abuse of minors, in an attempt to meet a key demand by victims` groups.

Child abuse and neglect are costing countries in East Asia and the Pacific an estimated $209 billion a year, equivalent to 2 percent of the region`s GDP, researchers said on Tuesday in the region`s first study of the economic impact of abuse.

An Argentine appeals court has touched off protests by reducing the sentence of a man convicted of abusing a six-year-old boy, on grounds that the victim was a homosexual who had previously been abused by his father.

The US ambassador to the United Nations is calling for an impartial investigation into the way that child sexual abuse allegations against French soldiers in the Central African Republic have been handled. Meanwhile, the UN human rights chief is asking why France didn't move more quickly to pursue the claims.

Glam rock star Gary Glitter was sentenced to 16 years in prison on Friday after being found guilty of abusing three young girls in the latest child sex scandal to bring down a former icon of Britain`s entertainment world.